The Benefits of Free Health Care in America

Imagine a world without the stress of medical bills and its debt. America should have free healthcare because doctors are taking advantage of their power when scheduling random, unnecessary scannings, people with major illnesses cannot pay for their sickness when they have no control of it, and we have proof of effective systems in nations such as Canada.

America’s health care system allows doctors to schedule random procedures that are used during big cases when they are diagnosable without all the machinery. Victor Fuchs, is the well-respected author of “Why Do Rich Nations Spend so Much on Healthcare?”, explains how America over does it with the machine procedures. They use this machinery whenever they can to get a few extra thousand dollars on their pockets. Fuchs explains “The U.S. delivers roughly three times as many mammograms, two-and-a-half times as many MRI scans, and a third more C-sections per capita than the average OECD country.” (Fuchs, 2014) These rates are unbelievable and need to be decreased. This shows the actual rates of the procedures done annually which are completely useless.

This means that other countries teach their doctors to not schedule unnecessary testing because it is a waste of time and money for the patients. In the long run, patients will spend billions of dollars on useless tests each year. All of this wasted money can be spent on patient wellness rather useless procedures. With free health care, people will be free of these high amounts of debt and will feel more at ease. Fuchs spoke of the differences in machine testing that America had with other countries.

Most all other countries do not do this much testing on people to confirm their already diagnosed problems. “Compared with the average OECD country, the U.S. delivers (population adjusted) almost three times as many mammograms, two-and-a-half times the number of MRI scans, and 31 percent more C-sections. Also, the U.S. has more stand-by equipment, for example, 1.66 MRI machines per 6,000 annual scans vs. 1.06 machines.” (Fuchs, 2014) This shows the actual rates of the procedures done annually which are completely useless. This is important because doctors are condoning inflective radiation to enter their patient's body.

One reason that America should have free healthcare is that people with major, chronic illnesses pay thousands of dollars every month to not be in pain. Andrew Pollack, alumni of Princeton University, composed this article, on September 20, 2015, in order to inform us of the random inflations of drugs that people have no control of using. “The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.” (Pollack, 2015) This quote shows that drugs can be raised for no reason.

Even if the drug isn’t worth $750 per tablet, their companies can increase their prices for no reason and without warning. This is important because people who are on this drug, Daraprim, may use this medication to survive and they shouldn’t pay that much money because it is a cruel punishment. Then, Pollack notifies us that when certain drugs aren’t used much anymore, their companies raise the prices. This way, the minimal patients using this product will give them more production money. “Although some price increases have been caused by shortages, others have resulted from a business strategy of buying old neglected drugs and turning them into high-priced “specialty drugs.” (Pollack, 2015) This quote means that when companies need extra money “for production”, they raise their drug prices. The call them “specialty drugs” to make it seem acceptable when in reality, it should not be tolerated any more.

America’s needs free healthcare because we have proof of effective systems from Canada among many other countries. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a well-respected cooperation since 1920, had their certified writers write the article “Comparing the U.S. and Canadian Health Care Systems” on April 29, 2016. Canada’s statistics of obesity and heart disease have a significant difference with America’s rates. “At older ages much of the gap is due to a higher rate of heart disease-related mortality in the U.S. While this could be related to better treatment of heart disease in Canada, factors such as the U.S.'s higher obesity rate (33 percent of U.S. women are obese, vs. 19 percent in Canada) surely play a role.” (NBER, 2016) Canada has much better health rates because of their easy access to health care. These statistics are important because it shows that we as Americans can have the same rates as Canada.

America can adopt their system easily and we can succeed along with them. “The final health status measure examined is the incidence of chronic conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, and asthma. These measures are less subjective, but also are known to be influenced by behavior and other factors outside of the health care system. The authors find that the incidence of these conditions is somewhat higher in the U.S.” (NBER, 2016) This quote shows the actual statistics of America's health issues and it gives us an idea of how much a change is needed.

You may ask how this health care systems would even pay for themselves. They would receive the money by raising tax prices. Some may say because free healthcare raises our taxes, it’s not worth it. But in the long run, it does more help than harm to their financial stability. Nadeem Esmail explains how drastic the taxes would change. He says that “For the average family of two parents with one child that bill will be $10,989, and for the average family of two adults (without children) the bill comes to $11,381.” These bills are worth being paid for because many people can afford these prices.

In all, America needs free healthcare because it will be beneficial for people who cannot afford their expensive treatments, there won’t be wasted machinery testing, and we have proof that this system works from countries like Canada. I encourage you all to write a letter to the Senate explaining how free healthcare will benefit yourself and your family. Hopefully, if the Senate receives enough heart-felt messages, he will consider these ideas and we will get one step closer to this wonderful possibility.